


mirage

by coloredink



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Epilogue, F/M, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-05
Updated: 2007-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:36:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mirage

**Author's Note:**

> Props to [](http://dasmondschaf.livejournal.com/profile)[**dasmondschaf**](http://dasmondschaf.livejournal.com/) and [](http://turtlespeaks.livejournal.com/profile)[**turtlespeaks**](http://turtlespeaks.livejournal.com/) for beta and [](http://questails.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://questails.livejournal.com/)**questails** for encouraging the madness.

She wakes all in a start, dismayed but unsurprised that her hand closes on empty sheets--her sword hangs on the wall, far from her side. But her heart pounds, she feels too vulnerable in her shift, there is someone in her chamber and _where are the guards?_

"Good to see that you have not lost your instincts, princess," says a familiar, detestable drawl.

Her heart stutters, gives a leap, and returns to beating far too quickly. "Balthier?" she near whispers, into the gloom.

"None other," he says. The windows are open; she can see the faint outline of his head against the paler square. "I told you: the leading man never dies."

She draws the sheets tighter against her body and hardens her voice; surely this must be some trick, or some dream. Balthier died in Bahamut; they never found his body, nor Fran's. "What do you here?"

"I was merely wondering if you needed to be spirited away again," he says. His voice holds a smirk. Ashe lets the anger steal up against the inside of her skin; it is familiar, and welcome. "After all," he continues, "that's what sky pirates do, isn't it? Steal princesses."

"I am no princess now," she counters.

"And no queen yet, either," he replies. "Well?"

"I have responsibilities."

"You wouldn't, if I took you from here," Balthier suggests.

Last week, Ashe drew blood from a servant's nose when he approached too quietly. Since then, they have taken the greatest of care to let their footsteps ring loudly against the floor and are ostentatious in their rustle and bustle. The week before that, she scandalized the court by riding out onto the Estersand with no retinue: only herself, a chocobo, a sword, and a shield. She wished to be alone, to reflect upon what this journey cost her--and cost Dalmasca. She fears nothing on the Sands; she thought she would be well enough on her own. Now, she realizes, she will never be alone again.

For one clear, shining moment, the meaning of Balthier's words hangs before her eyes like a veil: a life where she is not regarded as the eccentric of Dalmasca, where she does not wear courtly dresses day in and day out, where she does not bear the burden of kingdom. Then she is disgusted with herself for even considering the thought. She chose this burden; she bears it gladly. What for all the hardship, the suffering, the sacrifice, if she threw it all away for some misguided chance at freedom?

Balthier does not miss the meaning of her look. "So be it, then. I'll be off. Mayhaps, if I cross this way again, I'll see if you've changed your mind." He stops and comes closer to the bed. Ashe freezes, calculating at what angle she will have to strike to break his nose, and then to her shock feels his lips brush against hers, the scratch of his whiskers.

"A little taste of freedom," he says, and that infuriating mockery is back in his voice. She would have hit him, then, but he is already moving away, already gone.

In the morning, she thinks it must have been a dream.

\---

Sunlight catches on the armor of the soldiers drilling in the courtyard. Ashe watches them from the balcony, caught in a web of pleasant nostalgia, noting when one's shoulders are not straight enough, when another's feet are at improper angles. The sergeant marches up and down, back and forth among the rows, hurling insults and epithets. Three days ago, she thought to try her hand at instructing them herself; she thought they might respect her more. She was wrong.

The buzzing is so faint, at first, that she does not quite realize it for what it is. Then the airbike comes blurring by, causing her to gasp and recoil. She catches a glimpse of a white sleeve, twisted earrings glittering in the sunlight. The airbike makes another pass and then comes to hover before her, Balthier hunched down low over the controls.

"I come bearing a gift!" Balthier calls, grinning and breathless and looking very much his age. He tosses it in a gentle arc; she catches it more out of reflex than curiosity. Then he is gone, and Ashe is again watching the soldiers down below. They did not even notice, she thinks, with no small amount of exasperation. She looks down at her hand, to see what Balthier gave her.

It is a rose corsage, and yet she is without words.

\---

Al-Cid has begun courting her in earnest. Improper, to be certain, with she not even a queen yet. What could he hope to achieve? And yet, his company is not so unbearable. With him, she can speak of treaties and warfare and chocobo breeding and where the fish are biting best this season, and he listens. And once, when she thinks she might be able to get away for a few days--surely Dalmasca will not fall apart without her--he takes her to Rozarria. Such sights he would show her, he promised, and he did not renege. He shows her the courtyards and gardens of Al-Andalus, the zoo with all its exotic animals, the behemoth fights.

The last she enjoys the most fiercely; she knows it is beneath her, but she feels herself in the ring, dripping sweat upon the dust. She groans with the crowd when the behemoth clubs the fighter across the arena with a heavy paw and he nearly takes too long to rise; she raises her fists in triumph when his sword finds it mark in the behemoth's neck, spraying a long crimson crescent across the sand. Al-Cid watches her and smiles indulgently, and she pretends not to notice.

"You are so bloodthirsty," he observes as they depart the stadium.

The blood is still high in her cheeks. "Does it--trouble you?"

"Nay," he says, and the smile does not leave his face. "It is quite to the contrary."

That night, while she readies herself for bed, the lamp in her room glowing orange and familiar, she hears a rustle at the window. She turns sharply and reaches for her dagger--here, in a foreign country, she does not go unarmed--only to find a familiar figure perched there.

She frowns. "Are you following me?"

"To say 'yes' would make you feel far too important," Balthier replies.

Ashe thinks on this for a moment. "You did not say no. Therefore, I should feel very important indeed."

Balthier's face creases in a broad, boyish grin. "Well played, princess." He leaps down from the sill, landing soundless like a cat.

"You ought call me Queen, now," she reminds him.

"I believe I am quite famous for never doing as I ought," Balthier replies. "And to me, you shall ever be an arrogant, determined girl I met in the sewers one misfortunate eve." He comes close to her then, so that she can feel the heat of his skin. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows, in concession to the Rozarrian heat. The light of the lamp casts spiked shadows on his cheeks.

"Have you changed your mind?" he asks.

"No," she barely whispers.

"You sound uncertain," he observes.

It is only because you are so close, she does not say.

"You will say yes, one day," he promises, and then he is no longer there.

\---

The patter of the droplets makes a pleasant music against her helm and the hilt of her sword. Her retinue follows at a respectful distance, but Ashe cannot resist trying to escape them, a little. What has she to fear on the Giza Plains? The hyenas merely glance at her and slink away, and the elementals are not aggressive by nature.

She rides into the nomad village--abandoned, now, during the rains. She brings Constance to a halt and stares pensively into the distance. It seems a very long time ago, when first they all ventured to Jahara in search of answers to the riddle of a stone. She has not spoken to Penelo, nor Vaan, in some time now, and her letters to Basch are vague and formal. Are they to become strangers, then, after so much? Perhaps that is the nature of royalty.

"A queer place, for a princess," says a familiar voice. It drags up her spine.

"A queer place for a pirate," Ashe responds. "I recall you being unfond of the wet." She does not see the Strahl anchored anywhere near, but that means nothing; she recalls his trick with the ship in the Westersand, near the Jagd Sandsea.

"So I am," Balthier agrees, coming to stand beside her chocobo. Constance, normally so wary of strangers, only warks sadly and pecks at the grass. "But I saw you, and it would have been the height of rudeness to leave without so much as a hello. So, hello." He tips his head up at her. Water beads in his hair and drips off the ends of his earrings. He looks very handsome. "The crown grown too heavy yet?" he queries.

This time, Ashe resolves to answer question with question. "Why is it so important to you that I leave?"

"You are important to me." His face is suddenly grave. It is as close to a confession as she might ever hear from him. She tightens her hands on the reins and strokes Constance's headfeathers absently.

"You might stay," she suggests, impulsively, knowing even as she says it that the idea is pure folly.

Balthier quirks his eyebrows at her. "Would you cage me?"

Question with question; she has been repaid. She does not have to think long to know her answer: "No."

"Then I shan't."

She hears Sergeant Fellows' call, then. When she turns back, casting for some quick-witted reply, Balthier is already gone.

Sergeant Fellows berates her for going on so far ahead. She apologizes, but does not promise that it will not happen again.

\---

She wakes slowly, like rising through syrup, with his warm weight above her and around her, his mouth against hers. She breathes out against his skin and opens his eyes.

"So the princess wakes at last," Balthier observes; she can feel the words form against her skin.

"Does this make you the fairy tale prince?" she queries in nearly a whisper.

"I'm hardly a prince, and certainly no fairy tale." She feels him smile, as well, though she can hardly see him in the dark. His elbows dent the bed on either side of her; one hand is curled in her hair. The rest of his body presses up alongside hers, the sheets a flimsy barrier between them.

"But you are the leading man." When she brings up one hand, at last, she feels warm skin against hers. He has divested himself of his clothing--his shirt, at least--and clearly came here with carnal knowledge in mind. Rage and spite well up within her, and she has good mind to push him off the bed and call for the guards. Then he presses his lips to hers again and all her fury melts away, like the wadis in the Dalmascan sun. She flings the sheets away and rises to meet him.

In this, at least, he seems to have no objection to handing dominance to another; indeed, her aggression brings delight to his face, to his hands and his kisses and his touch. This only drives her to greater heights of ferocity or passion, she knows not which, and she crushes him beneath her, takes him in hand, and rides him. She has never done this before, not even with her husband, and she is shocked to find it pleases her to have him beneath her thighs, to control him in this way. She is powerful; she owns him. She throws her head back and rolls her hips, drawing a groan from him. Slowly, like she might spook and shy away, he brings up one hand and then the other, and closes them both around her forearms. She clasps her hands around his wrists in turn, and in this way, holding one another, they drive each other to completion.

\---

Ashe opens her eyes to find Balthier watching her, propped up on one elbow.

"Well?" he asks, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I've been patient."

She does not quite know what her answer will be until she opens her mouth, and afterward she realizes it could not have been any other way: "No." She closes her hands on the sheet and sits up, a little, so that she does not have to look up at him. "It would not be right. We suffered so much--so many losses, to bring Dalmasca to this place. It would belittle everything that has happened, were I to abandon it all now--and for what? I would not be happy, living all the rest of my days without purpose, knowing that I had abandoned my duty, my kingdom."

Balthier does not seem disappointed in the least; indeed, he looks satisfied, as if all this were expected. Perhaps it was. "You are quite certain."

"Yes," she says. "Yes, I am."

"You realize you'll never see me again," he says. His eyes are dark.

"I know," she replies, and now she cannot meet his gaze.

When she looks up, he is gone. Nay--he was never there; she has no more need of him, now.

\---

Vaan still does not quite understand propriety; indeed, he seems to think it a very fine joke to drop in unexpectedly on a balcony and alarm half the palace in the process.

"This is for you," he says, depositing a small envelope of curious weight in her hand; he speaks so quickly that his words tumble over one another like circus clowns. "Penelo and I are leaving now. We might not be back for a while. So just--take care of yourself, okay? And take care of Rabanastre." He grins, a quick flash of white in his tanned face, and disappears with a whip of wind, his ship whirring up and away.

Ashe upends the envelope and shakes its contents into her palm. It is her ring--Rasler's ring--and a short note penned in an elegant hand: _Something more valuable_.

She wonders what he found.

\-- end --


End file.
